악의적 모방상표에 해당하는지의 여부에 대한 고찰 ― 대법원 2019. 8. 14. 선고 2017후752 판결을 중심으로

Recently, the Supreme Court has reached a verdict concerning pre-use trademarks only known in foreign countries. In this case, the registered trademark did not imitate the pre-use trademark identically. And yet, the appearance of the two trademarks was very similar, and they had an economically close relation with the other’s goods as well. However, the Supreme Court reached the verdict that the registered trademark in this case came under a counterfeit mark applied with an object of unfair gain, based on this. This commentary on this precedent compared and analyzed the purpose of legislation for the prevention of the registration of counterfeit marks, Article 34 (1) 13 of Trademark Act and other regulations. In particular, this study investigated if the Supreme Court’s confirmation of the pre-use trademarks as the original trademark was reasonable. Also, this study examined if its judgment that the registered trademark in this case came under a malicious application with an object of unfair gain for the reason of similarity in the appearance of the two trademarks. Furthermore, this study proposed improvements of the system concerning the desirable direction of the prevention of the registration of malicious counterfeit marks.